


The Ghosts of Venom

by Etched_in_Fire



Series: Star Fox: Fate's Decree [7]
Category: Star Fox Series
Genre: Andross mention, Gen, James McCloud mention, Post Lylat Wars, Star Fox Zero, venom - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-07-19 13:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7362439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etched_in_Fire/pseuds/Etched_in_Fire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>0 ALW -- After the fall of Andross, the Lylat System celebrates the end of a tumultuous war.  With Star Wolf missing, the Androssian forces on the run, everything is looking great for Corneria... And yet Fox can't celebrate.  Disturbed by what he saw in the Corridor of Illusion, Fox decides to seek out where his father, James McCloud, was last seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Theory So Crazy It Might Be True

A galaxy-wide celebration came in the wake of Andross’s defeat.  A looming threat that had kept the Cornerians on their toes for years was vanquished, and in an instant it was as though the Lylat System had breathed a collective sigh of relief.  The news broadcasted nothing but the inevitable clean up aftermath of the war.  In flashing red banners lining the screens, the news articles read a variety of tidbits—“Androssian Remnants Fleeing to Nearby Sargasso Region”, “Star Wolf: Missing Band of Mercenaries Believed to be Dead”, “Geralt Andross: The Man Behind the War”, and finally, “The Cornerian Teleportation Project—To be Resumed Following the End of the Lylat Wars”. 

Fox McCloud found the news reports to be mildly interesting at best.  Distractedly, he flipped through the channels, propping his head up with a bent elbow and an open palm to his cheek.  _All these press stories… it’s what everyone is going to be talking about for weeks._  It had been expected, but it still irritated him.  After his father’s passing a few years prior, his family had been put under the media’s spotlight for some time.  He had been known as “the son of James McCloud” during those dark times.  It had been a mantle he had loathed for a time… before learning to wear it with pride.  Without thinking, his hand strayed to the box within the confines of his desk.  It was smooth, small and rectangular in shape… the container of the last gift his father had given to him.  He had not opened it since he had gone to Venom.... and for some reason, even though Andross was gone, he could not bear to open it.

“I’ve turned down seven calls from the Cornerian Press, Lylat Today, and Nebula News Network,” Peppy Hare said with a ruefully sip from his coffee mug. “But I doubt that’s the last time we’ll hear from them.”

Falco was busy drumming his fingers on the bridge’s control panel, eyeing his bank account via an adjacent monitor with gleaming jade eyes. “I don’t care about the press, I just wanna know when those checks we cashed are gonna turn up in our accounts!”

“I’m sure it’ll be soon, Falco!” Slippy said, trying to act cheerful.  His tongue was stuck out to the side, flopping about comically as he studied his own computer monitor.  He was playing a colonization game, Fox noted, one out of a series.  “Age of Lylat III”, or something… Slippy had always had such a fascination with strategy games, even when they had both been young.  From a brief gander, it looked as though Slippy had selected the water planet of Aquas for his starting empire.

_Empires.  I think the Lylat System has seen enough of those to last awhile,_ mused the vulpine darkly.  Even the word “empire” reminded him of Andross… it reminded him of what had almost been.  He massaged his temple gingerly, closing his eyes and giving a small sigh. _Even before I was born, Corneria was the center of its own empire.  And that was a disaster too._ He was trying not to think of the thing that had been nagging him since his battle with Andross.  But it was there, the looming shadow in his dreams, the fly buzzing in his ears… He tried so hard to banish it from the front of his mind, but with sullen reluctance, he accepted it for a moment.

_Who was it that I saw on Venom?  Who was in that plane that guided me?_ The radio static had made the transmission hard to understand, but he could have sworn he it had been…

“What’s wrong, Fox?” Slippy asked him.  When Fox opened an eye to his friend, the toad continued, “You keep doing that.”

“Doing what?” Fox asked obliviously.

“Sighing.  Aren’t you happy?  We defeated Andross!  The Lylat System is safe!”

_Safe… For now.  Star Wolf hasn’t been found yet.  And there’s still a few of Andross’s generals we’ll have to face sooner or later.  The Lylat Wars are done according to the media, but I doubt they’ll be actually done for awhile…_ Fox thought, but he mustered a weak smile to his friend. “Yeah, I’m happy, Slip.” But it wasn’t convincing.  Not to the friend who had seen him at his worst.  Not to the friend who had seen him at his best.  Fox cringed outwardly when Slippy’s brow furrowed.

“You’re a bad liar, Fox,” Slippy said.

_Called me on my bluff…_

“Yep,” Fox sighed again, and Slippy swiveled his chair to face him, frowning.

“So spit it out already!” Slippy said, and Fox became aware that Peppy and even Falco were watching him.  His skin crawled beneath his fur, and he evaded their prying looks. 

The pressure from their looks reminded him of a time when he had felt like another person entirely.  Fox recalled the feeling all too well—two years ago, he had sat under the eye of General Pepper, the President of the Cornerian Flight Academy, and his father’s wingman, Peppy Hare.  They had implored him… begged him to consider taking charge of the Star Fox team. 

_This is just like before…_

He felt himself cracking under their looks.  The seams of his sanity were ripping—bursting, even.  They had to have noticed the sleepless nights since the fight on Venom—his eyes were bloodshot more and more with each day.  

“There’s just a lot I don’t get,” Fox admitted finally.  “Peppy, when you and Dad went to Venom… you know…” _The last time._ “… You said you saw a temple?  You said the air was toxic?  I didn’t see anything like that when I was there.  It was like Venom was a machine…”

Peppy shifted uncomfortable in his chair, studying Fox’s face over his spectacles. _He hates talking about what happened that day, I know he does.  But I can’t… just sit here in my thoughts anymore.  I need to know what I saw. I need to know what I saw was real._  Fox felt himself swallowing down a lump in his throat and let his gaze fall onto Falco, who was awkwardly slurping out of a glass bottle of Cornerian soda.  _Poor Falco, thrown into all of this mess.  He was just some guy we found on the side of the road, really.  Some guy that needed work just as much as we needed him…_

“Fox,” Peppy’s voice did not hide a quiver.  He sat his coffee mug down, removed his spectacles, and rubbed his eyelids.  Fox expected a heartbroken sigh, but he heard nothing but the quietness of the old hare holding his breath as he stewed upon his own thoughts.  It was a long moment of uneasy quiet before the pilot spoke again, solidarity in his voice. “After your mother died, James was forbidden from taking part in the investigation behind the explosion.  The task was given to the Cornerian Police Department, who were able to uncover not only Andross’s involvement but the plan to use the teleportation devices being developed for selfish purposes.  Your father, myself, and a select few others sealed him into a pocket of another dimension, hoping we would be rid of him forever.”

“You didn’t just laser him to death?” Falco piped up but Slippy ‘shushed’ him.

“Andross… was tampering with things we didn’t quite understand.  He had changed somehow—we didn’t understand how or why,” Peppy sighed. “Anyways, after the mission, your dad took you and went to Papetoon.  I’m sure you remember moving there and living there for a few years.  When you moved back, we were all stunned.  James had sworn off Corneria—said it was the place of his miseries.  But he came back, wanting to form his mercenary band—like he’d been saying since the Cornerian War ended.  He enlisted Pigma, despite what I thought was a good idea.  Somewhere in our adventures, we found Randorn.”

“General Pepper had a bad feeling about Andross, ever since we sealed him up, though, and one day, he noticed there was something odd about the toxic planet, Venom.  Venom was… well, it was an old colony site for Corneria, but that was a long time ago.  It was dubbed inhospitable after a certain incident—an incident no one really likes to talk about.  We didn’t think anyone could survive there, but General Pepper had us look into it.  We found ancient structures there, and Randorn seemed to know something about them… So we landed, had our oxygen masks on… went into the ‘temples’, as Randorn put it… When we got inside, we found Andross was in there—alive and well and raising an army.  To this day, I’m still not sure how he swayed so many people to follow him.”

“Through fear, probably,” Slippy chimed in and this time, it was Falco that ‘shushed’ him.

“We… well, we were discovered.  At the time, we weren’t sure how, but Andross knew we were there so we made our way back to our Arwings.  In our escape back to the Mothership, we were caught into a tractor beam somehow… Andross was trying to pull us into a tractor beam.  He wanted to use the teleportation device and trap us into another dimension, much like how we had done to him,” Peppy continued, eyes glazed over with memory.  His voice was hard, steeled in a way Fox had never heard before.  There was no gentleness in his godfather’s demeanor.

“Pigma was the only one unaffected.  I should’ve begun firing at that moment… but I didn’t realize what it meant.  He turned his lasers on James and with what little maneuverability we had, we fought him.  Our Arwings were heavily damaged.  Randorn was able to disable Pigma’s weapons somehow… Enough to down the plane, at least.  James took it upon himself to destroy the tractor beam… Randorn and I were sitting ducks, trying to fend off the Androssians as best as we could.  By the time that James was able to disable the tractor beam… we were nearly defeated.  And James… He gave us one final order to return to Corneria and give our reports.”

Fox expected tears in Peppy’s eyes, but there were none.  The old pilot’s nose wrinkled with distaste, as though he were chewing on something bitter.  He gave the empty air before him a hard look, his shoulders sagged with unseen weight.  “I begged James to come with us.  Over the transmission, there was the sound of laserfire.  He was under attack.  He said ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you guys’.  I knew it was a lie.  I knew it then as much as I know it now.  But I left anyways.”  His hand trembled, fingers curled into a fist wrapped around his Space Dynamics mug.

_So that’s how it all happened, huh…_

“Thanks for telling me, Pep,” Fox said with a melancholy smile.  He gave another sigh and took a soda from Slippy’s hand gratefully, giving his friend an appreciative nod.  He popped the cap off, let it fizz a moment before giving a good, long drink.  All the while, he mulled over what his wingman had told him.  Peppy’s story fit in every way he had anticipated… except for one detail. “So wait… the Venom I saw… versus the Venom you saw…?”

“It sounds to me like something happened to the original Venom.  Maybe it was teleported elsewhere…?  Maybe it was destroyed?” Peppy sighed. “It’s hard to say.  Andross was messing with some dangerous technology.”

“Yet, the fake Venom was in the same place as the original…” Slippy rubbed his chin. “It is a tough one.  I guess he may have put it there as a trap?  He couldn’t have destroyed Venom… Everyone would know if he had, the entire Lylat System would have felt it!”

“It makes me wonder…” Peppy stroked his chin hairs, “… if the real Venom was put elsewhere...”

“I want to go to Venom,” Fox announced, and Peppy’s eyes widened.  The vulpine rose out of his chair, moving to the main control panel. “There’s something I need to see for myself.”

“But Venom’s been destroyed, Fox,” Slippy blinked with surprise. “You can’t go back.  It’s just debris!”

“You just said it yourself.  If Venom was destroyed, then the whole Lylat System would’ve felt it,” Fox took another drink from his soda. “I don’t think that was Venom.  It was too small and it didn’t look anything like the Venom Peppy saw.”

“What are you saying?” Falco scoffed, breaking his silence.  He kicked his boots up and onto the control panel, much to Peppy’s disapproval. “That the real Venom got sucked away somewhere else?  I’m not a freakin’ genius but I’m pretty sure someone would have noticed that.”

“It’s not… entirely impossible,” Slippy began quietly.  “Swapping a fake Venom with a real one.  Not with t-technology like the kind Andross had…”

“But how would we find it?” Falco sputtered. “You’re talking about traveling into another dimension… Aren’t there a million of those?  Besides, we don’t just have a teleporter lying around.”

“No, but we have a General Pepper,” Fox shrugged. “One who owes us a lot of money and even a life debt.”

“Fox…” Peppy warned him, brows raised. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, or why you’re so interested in Venom, but you need to ask yourself what you think you’ll really find there.  It may not be what you’re hoping for…”

The vulpine fiddled with his crimson scarf for a moment.  He had been young when his mother had died in a hovercar explosion.  Her memory was faded in his mind, like a picture torn and faint from age.  She was a name and the distant face… One he only knew from those ancient photos.  He remembered that when his father had passed, he had been afraid of how quickly he might forget his dad.  As absurd as it seemed… Fox was still scared.  Andross was dead, yes, but that had not brought his father back.  It would never bring his father back.  Fox could only rest knowing that no one else could fall victim to the ape’s insane schemes again…

Was that why it still hurt so bad?  Because his run of vengeance had come to an end?  Because the ghosts were still ghosts? And the wounded were still hurting?

“Answers, Peppy.  I just want some answers,” Fox said after a moment of quiet contemplation.  None dared argue further.


	2. Complications

Peppy input Corneria’s coordinates into the Great Fox, and let ROB do the piloting.  The aging hare sat back with a small “harrumph”, mug in his hand.  Deftly with a hand, he beamed a transmission signal to General Pepper, all the while giving his coffee a sip.  Slippy turned down the music on the radio as the signal beeped for a few moments.  Fox eagerly stared at the overhead screen, kicking his legs back and forth under his chair with anticipation.

“What’s the old coot doin’?  Is it really more important than the heroes of the Lylat System?” Falco scoffed from where he sat in his chair.

“Oh be patient for once, Falco,” Slippy scowled at him. “He’s the General of all of Corneria plus all of her colonies.  That’s most of the Lylat System’s population!  Don’t you think he’s a bit preoccupied?”

“Bahhh…” Falco spat, arms folded about his chest.

A few minutes later and the General’s face appeared on the overhead screen, a lollipop comically sticking out of the corner of his mouth. “Star Fox!” He sounded as jolly as ever, his drooping jowls scarcely able to contain his smile.  “How have you been?  Enjoying your recent paychecks?”

“Oi!  What paychecks?  My bank account is still empty as my stomach,” Falco began but Slippy pulled him back into his chair.

“Errr, never mind him!” the toad said apologetically.

“General Pepper,” Fox said as he stepped forward. “The Star Fox team is requesting a favor.”

“A favor?” General Pepper raised his eyebrows. “Well, I can’t promise anything, but I will do my best for you guys.”

“We’re looking to re-enter Venom’s airspace,” Fox explained, “It’s… kind of a long story.”

General Pepper’s brows rose with intrigue.  He jostled the lollipop in his mouth with thought for a second, in silent congress with himself.  “You want to go back to Venom?”

“Yes, sir,” Fox answered.

“Why?” General Pepper asked him, and Fox’s ears flushed as his nerves rattled. He had known the hound would ask him—it was an odd request after all.  Venom was known for its high amounts of toxicity in the air and water.  Failed attempts at colonization had dubbed it the “Inhospitable Planet”.  More superstitious folk called it “the Cursed Planet”, but Fox wasn’t sure he believed that. 

“During the mission on Venom, I encountered something odd as I was going into the planet’s core.  Or… well, what I thought was the planet’s core,” Fox explained, an anxious glance shot in Peppy’s direction.  The hare gave him a reassuring nod, and he continued after clearing his throat. “I saw an Arwing, sir.  But more than that, I heard static over the radio.  There was someone guiding me to where Andross was, sir.  And I’d know that Arwing anywhere.”

The General of Corneria did not even so much blink.  Though glazed over his dark irises, and a distinct crunch of his lollipop could be heard from the transmission. 

“Tell me about the Arwing,” General Pepper said carefully.

“Mark I.  Silver and blue.  Some scratches and dings on the hull.  I didn’t get close enough to see the pilot,” Fox said, “But there’s only four Arwings in the Lylat System like that.  Two of them are unaccounted for—Pigma’s and…”

“Your father’s,” General Pepper munched on the lollipop, discarding the stick somewhere off screen.  His expression was grave, but there was confusion in his features.  The same questions that buzzed in Fox’s mind were written in the hound’s frown and eyes.  “And you’re sure of the two accounted for…”

“Mine is in the Great Fox as we speak,” Peppy Hare chimed in, “And the fourth hasn’t been used since Venom.  But it’s here as well; Randorn didn’t take it when he left for his homeworld.”

“And you’re certain there’s no way it could have been Pigma’s?” General Pepper asked him.

Fox rubbed his chin.  Could it have been Pigma’s?  It wasn’t impossible—as far as he knew, Pigma still had his Arwing.  But how would it have gotten to the core of the supposedly fake Venom?  Who would have been piloting it that wanted Andross dead as much as the Cornerians did?  Pigma clearly wasn’t the one who had been guiding him to Andross… Their fight outside of the planet core’s entrance had left him using his escape pod to flee for safety.  It would have been impossible for him to find his Arwing and make it into the core, even if he had wanted to help Fox…

“Certain?  I mean, looking at the facts, it seems certain to me that it wasn’t Pigma,” Fox said, thinking aloud.  “From what I could see, it was identical to Dad’s.  It flew with the same expertise.  And the voice through the static…”

_I don’t want to hope, but here I am, hoping and hoping that somehow he’s still out there…_

“I will get you access to the transporter device,” General Cornelius Pepper said after a moment of pensive thought.  “If there’s a way that James is out there…” His voice cracked, something that Fox had not heard since the funeral that miserable day in Corneria City.  “… I want to bring him home.”

“Thank you, General,” Fox gave a quick salute. “We’re on the way to Corneria as we speak.”

It took some time for Fox to settle down as their voyage to Corneria began.  Pacing the bridge of the Great Fox, he let his hands caress the railings, occasionally reaching out to touch the steel interior.  His father had taken out loans to pay Space Dynamics for the construction of the ship—substantial loans that General Pepper had waived.  Word had come back to Fox that the president of the company was not terribly pleased about it, but Pepper had told him not to worry about it.  _Sort of odd that Pepper could have that waived… it’s a huge loan, after all.  S_ omething told Fox there was more happening there than what he knew, but he did not bother himself with those thoughts for the moment.  If anything needed his attention, he was certain General Pepper or Fara’s father, the Research Director for Space Dynamics, would contact him.

_Dad had a lot of faith that the team could pay it off with money from the missions.  Maybe he wasn’t wrong.  Those paychecks for saving Corneria are going to be nice..._

He walked past their dormitory area and towards the back of the ship.  Sliding down the ladder into the hanger, he walked past the various Arwings docked, dormant and ready to fly at a moment’s notice.  The Mark I’s were the planes of the first generation of the Star Fox team—nimbler and sleek in build with an outdated set of cannons and less storage for bombs.  James had designed them himself, with the help of Slippy’s father, Beltino Toad. 

The Mark II’s were their current planes—tipped with yellow at the wings and thicker, built sturdy for the thick of warfare.  Slippy had made edits to the original Mark I, but the basis of their structure was found in James’s old notes.  Fox thought about taking his for a brief flight, but he decided against it; his vision was blurred from exhaustion and something about cruising the abyss of space held no appeal to him.   The vulpine stationed himself at the window, pondering the stars as they flickered by.

_I fought your war.  It was all I could do to stay sane._

He wondered if it was a ghost of grief that was dragging him back to Venom.  Aspects of adventure and camaraderie had given the mercenary life allure.  Rigorous training on Papetoon had made his father’s loss seem distant at times.  Everything had become a process, listed in steps that Peppy had guided him through. Step one—become stronger, become better.  Step two—when the time came, protect his homeworld.  Step three… Step three… It was something he had known would happen with due time but it was still a void as vast as space itself.  Whatever it was began on Venom and wherever it would take him, Fox did not know.

“Fox,” Slippy found him staring holes through the window, his chin propped up by an open palm. 

“Hey Slip,” Fox said, breaking his gaze from the countless stars outside.

“Wanna help me tune some of the equipment on the Arwings?” Slippy asked him, and Fox agreed with a small nod.

He sat in the cockpit as the toad made his adjustments to the engines and targeting system.  Fox watched the lights beam up… then fade back down into darkness with every poke and prod that Slippy made.  Even though he had attended the same academy as his friend, his specialization had been space warfare, not engineering.  The vulpine watched him with mild interest as he worked, lost in the engineering jargon he was spouting off, but occasionally nodding and giving his friend a soft smile.  _He really has come a long way since we were kids._

“Have you heard from Fara in awhile?” Slippy asked him after some time.

“Nah,” Fox said.  In all actuality, it had been bothering him how quiet their relationship had become.  Fara had been most disappointed when the Star Fox team had refused to assimilate into the Cornerian Army as a specialized force.  She had expected him to come home and to stay… But here he was, adrift in space with no true desire to settle back into the Cornerian lifestyle.

“Have you tried calling her?” Slippy asked him.

“I left a voicemail.  I think she’s doing some work on the Katina base so she may just be busy,” Fox said with a small shrug.  He caught Slippy’s worried look but mentioned nothing of it. 

They spent the rest of their time tinkering with the Arwings.  Slippy mentioned he had sent a few rough drafts of Mark III’s to be looked over by his father, along with laser upgrades to the current models.  Some of it was theorized, he explained sheepishly, and wasn’t entirely sure Space Dynamics technology could pull it off just yet.  He had Fox convert the Arwing into its Walker form, and jotted down some notes before he declared their experiment completed.

“So, all of the calibration should be in order in case we decide to upgrade while we’re in Corneria,” Slippy rubbed his chin. “And if we get more money, I’d like to try having different types of Arwings.”

“Slippy, we have a sub, a military tank, a gyrocopter, a hover-military tank… thing… And at least two different types of Arwings available,” Fox sighed but glanced at the piece of paper the toad proudly held up.

“I call them the Interceptor-Class Arwing and the Defense-Class Arwing,” Slippy said with a sunny grin.  He gestured to the smaller, sleeker build. “This one would be faster than our current ones, built with twin laser cannons.  This one…” he pointed to the thicker one, “Is bigger, bulkier, so it could take more damage even though it’s slower.  Some of our Arwings got scraped up when we went inside those Androssian carriers.  I was thinking sturdier could be better.”

“Hm, well I like our current models just fine, but maybe having specialized Arwings wouldn’t be such a bad idea… but we’ll have to wait and see how much cash we draw in from missions,” Fox said with a shrug as they departed the hanger.

“Sounds good to me!  I bet we’ll get a lot of calls in no time,” Slippy beamed. “And then we can have all the shiny Arwings we want.”

“Yeah, well have fun getting help tinkering with all of them,” Fox retorted with a snicker.

“Easy!  I’ll just ask Falco to,” Slippy said nonchalantly.

“Ha!  Good luck with that!” Fox laughed.

The voyage to Corneria took a day and a half.  Telling time was hard to do in space, but Peppy had enough foresight to put a series of clocks on the lounge wall.  By the time that the Great Fox entered Cornerian orbit, it was mid-afternoon and the Star Fox team opted to take their Arwings down.  They left the Great Fox in the care of ROB64 and Direct-I and made their descent from the Great Fox’s hanger into open space.

            They flew in formation, something that they were simply used to, with Fox at the head of the diamond.  Stars whizzed by as he pressed on the accelerator and Corneria grew until it was all he could see from the cockpit.  Air control gave them clearance to land, and they did so with no incidents along the way.  Fox was surprised to see a sleek Cornerian Army hovercar waiting for them in the terminal. 

            “Traveling in style,” Falco grinned from behind his sunglasses. 

            The four clambered into the hovercar, and though there was ample space, Falco insisted on stretching out his legs and kept kicking Fox in the calf.  Thankfully the drive to the Cornerian Military Headquarters was brief, and General Pepper was there to greet them upon exiting the vehicle.

            “Good afternoon,” General Pepper said to them, an escort to his left and right. “I hope you all had smooth travels on your way here.”

            “Quiet and peaceful,” Fox nodded.  The doors into the headquarters slid open and they were permitted inside, greeted by the cool blast of air conditioning.  General Pepper led them past the front desk and to an elevator.  The ride up to his office was crammed between the seven of them, but they managed without too many elbows into ribs.

            General Pepper’s office was large, overseeing the city and adorned with fancy furniture that Fox could only estimate how much it cost.  The hound had prepared seats for them on the other side of his massive desk and so they all sat while the secretary fetched them all beverages.

            “Well, there has been some progress with the teleportation device,” General Pepper said. “As you are aware, Dr. Andross was in charge of the development during his time as the President of Space Dynamics.  However, due to his crimes…” Fox felt the hound’s eyes rest on him for a moment before returning to its sweep across the faces of the team. “… he was removed from the position, which was then handed down to his dedicated pupil, Yaru DePon.  We now come to Space Dynamics today.  Mr. DePon kept tinkering with the technology, and we now believe that stable teleportation gates around the Lylat System are a possibility.”

            “That’s… Incredible,” Fox’s eyes widened.

            “There are still difficulties that lie ahead…” the general rubbed his forehead. “But we want to begin construction of the first teleportation gate in the next year.”  There was something else drifting in the dog’s mind, but he did not voice it.  Instead, Pepper mustered up a smile and said, “Fortunately for you, we still have the teleportation device used during your assault on Venom.”

            “The fake Venom, you mean,” Slippy pointed out and the general’s brows rose.

            “We did some note comparisons between when my father flew out to Venom and when I used the teleportation device to reach Venom,” Fox explained. “And there’s some inconsistencies.  I noticed the interior of the planet did not remotely match the size of the planet either.  It was like I was…”

            “In another dimension?” General Pepper asked. “Yes…  Hm that is odd.”

            “I’ve done some thinking,” Slippy added. “Andross might have swapped the fake Venom for the real Venom, storing the real Venom in a pocket dimension like he tried to do with the fake Venom when our time was about to assault it.  But the only way to swap the fake Venom into a pocket dimension without some noticeable effects in the area would be to replace the fake Venom with another object.”

            “I’m lost,” Falco admitted.

            “Are you suggesting he’s just swapping stuff in and out of that same place?  Over and over again?” Fox asked. “Why would he do that?”

            “Think about it,” Slippy rubbed his chin. “Everyone assumed Andross was on the real Venom.  Well, he had enough to support to get him removed from the real Venom after awhile, right? I mean, he had spacefighters, carriers… he could’ve gone to any planet he wanted to.  But what if instead of doing that, he decided to build his own planet.  One with a teleportation device…”

            “Go on…” General Pepper said.

            “He could just swap the real and the fake Venom back and forth without much worry,” Slippy theorized. “Orbital patterns of other masses would stay the same theoretically… if he was able to make up for the mass difference between the original Venom and the fake Venom, because from what it sounds like, they were two different sizes.  If he managed that, which I’m not sure how to even begin doing that…” The toad began to sound uncertain of himself. “He probably could just flip flop a bunch of times.”

            “That’s all well and good, but why didn’t we see the original Venom when we were approaching from Sector Omega?” Peppy asked.

            “A cloaking device?” Slippy postulated.

            “Are you saying we were looking straight at the real Venom when we were fighting that annoying attack carrier?” Falco scoffed. “That’s nuts.  I don’t think I buy that.”

            “It’s possible,” Slippy said. 

            “But we’re missing what we came here for,” Fox interrupted them. “I saw the Arwing in the fake Venom’s core.  That’s only accessible by the teleportation device.  We can get there from Corneria City, right, General?”

            “It is possible,” General Pepper sighed. “But unlikely at this point.”

            “What?” Fox’s eyes widened.

            The old hound gave a sigh, pulling out his stash of lollipops from his desk.  He selected a blue one, delicately unwrapped it, and shoved it into his mouth, remorsefully dodging Fox’s eye. “After your assault on Venom, a lot of Androssian forces surrendered.  Thorough investigation of their base and equipment yielded interesting results.  The weaponry the Androssians were provided had striking similarities to the weapons given to the CDF and CA.  To make the short much shorter, the company producing Androssian weapons was owned by Space Dynamics.”

            Slippy’s gasp tore through the room and Fox felt his heart sink down into the depths of his stomach. _No way…_ “Space Dynamics?  As in…?” _The branch of the Cornerian military dedicated to the pursuit of technology advancement and weapons production._

“Yaru… Dedicated pupil indeed,” Peppy spat bitterly.

            “At first we thought it was a mistake.  After all, Andross had once been in charge of Space Dynamics,” General Pepper sighed. “But we discovered the culprit profiting off of it all was none other than President DePon himself.  An arrest was made this morning and it has not hit the news.”

            “Then the teleportation device…” Fox began.

            “It is still in Corneria City, but it is dormant.  DePon put a passcode on it and we have not been able to break through it,” General Pepper sighed again.  “We’re hoping he will talk soon.  Until then,  Franklin Phoenix has been named the temporary President of Space Dynamics and has a special team working to dig for possible passcodes in their company files.”

            Fox melted back into his chair, half-lidded eyes staring holes through the general.  _One step forward… another step back.  Why can’t things just be simple for once?_  “So is there really no way to get back to where Andross had stored the fake Venom?”

            “I think you ought to ask that question to Mr. Slippy Toad, here,” General Pepper gestured to the young toad.

            “Me?” Slippy asked with surprise.

            “Your theory?” the hound prompted.

            “Oh!  Fake Venom and real…” Slippy realized with another gasp, more hopeful in tone. “Real Venom!  We could go to real Venom and see if Andross had a teleportation device there!”

            “Yes.  There are likely rogue devices that are unlocked and available for use… just not adequately tested by Cornerian military,” General Pepper sighed. “But I know Andross.  He was a perfectionist at his work—I say that begrudgingly, mind you.  He was a terrible man, but his science was flawless.  It is likely you can rely on the technology working, but sending you clear to Venom is a task that fills me with worry.  They don’t call it cursed for nothing.”

            “I’m not afraid,” Fox stood up. “I need to know what I saw out there, General.” _It’s my closure to this insane chapter of life._

            “Then good luck, Fox, and I will keep you updated on the situation with DePon,” General Pepper said with a small smile. 

            Fox barely noticed the drive back to the hanger.  His mind bounced haphazardly between topics—Venom, then Yaru DePon, then to the corridor where he had seen his father’s Arwing… and then back in a vicious circle.  By the time they had reached their Arwings, he had realized he had neglected to even consider if Fara was around the city or if she wanted to see him.  _Maybe it’s best if I don’t._  Their last talk had been brutal and he found himself unable to come up with a proper defense as to why he was acting this way to her.  The wanderer’s life called to him so much more than any life on Corneria did… He had abandoned that lifestyle long ago.

            _I’m sorry, Fara, I’ll come back after this mission is done and we can talk then…_

            “You comin’ Foxy?” Falco hollered and the vulpine realized he was dwindling behind.

            “Oh… yeah!” Fox remembered himself and opened the Arwing cockpit, settling inside.  There was solace in the snug seat, where the buttons lit up at his fingers and space awaited him.  But he knew it would be short-lived.  Once they were aboard the Great Fox, they would be strategizing and making preparations to land on Venom.  He was not much of a praying sort, but he silently appealed to whoever was out there listening to him that their journey to Venom would yield the sort of internal peace he needed.


	3. The Writing on the Wall

            The voyage to Venom airspace took them across the Lylat System once more.  Twice Fox saw comets trailing in the distance, their tails illuminated like fireworks.  Solar flared as they passed it, burning with a tenacity that rivaled Lylat.  Sector Omega greeted them with naught but rubble—remnants of the Androssian fleet drifting in the vast ocean of the abyss, the distant nebula carelessly watching the corpses of the once-active fleet flounder. 

            “Alright, so where is Venom?” Falco asked Slippy as they made their approach in the mothership.  He carelessly leaned against the wall and sipped some Cornerian soda from the bottle, the glass clanging awkwardly against his beak.

            “Right there,” Slippy pointed ahead. “Well, in theory that is!”

            “In theory…” Falco scoffed and took another drink from his soda. “Welp, Slip, it’s gonna be really hard to get into orbit if we can’t even see the damn thing.  How’re we supposed to know we’re not about to crash into it?”

            “At a certain distance, cloaking devices aren’t in effect.  So if we just keep flying at where it should be…” Slippy shrugged.

            “How close, though?” Falco asked and Fox admitted he was wondering the same thing.

            “Close,” Slippy suggested with an uncertain chuckle.

            “Well, I guess we’re gonna keep going forward,” Fox decided aloud and no one protested.  He kept a keen eye ahead of the Great Fox, where there was nothing but darkness and faint stars dotting the distance.  Doubt began to crawl upon the back of his neck after a few moments of silence.  Peppy had scarcely said a word since they had passed Titania, his mahogany eyes filled with disquiet as he stared out the window.  Fox couldn’t blame him; returning to this place was likely a nightmare for him, and the vulpine considered offering to let him stay on board the Great Fox during their expedition. 

_No, he’ll want to see for himself, too._

            “Something’s wrong,” Peppy said giving the air a sniff.  Running to the window, the hare peered through the glass at the Great Fox’s massive wings. “We’re… We’re burning up!” 

            “Burning up?!” Slippy nearly fell from his chair.

            “We’ve entered the atmos—” the greying hare began.

            “ATTENTION!” ROB64 chimed suddenly. “APPROACHING LARGE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD AT HIGH SPEED… BRACE FOR IMPACT IN… FORTY-FIVE SECONDS…”

            “Whaaa?  What’s going on?” Falco sputtered.

             Red emergency lights began flashing and the alarms resounded in Fox’s ear with such volume that he visibly cringed.  A panicked look was shot at Slippy, who ran to the controls and began punching in buttons.  The map display overhead depicted an image of Venom—a swirling gaseous sphere that made Corneria look pathetically small.  The alert displayed the word “WARNING” in bright, flashing red letters across the planet’s image. 

_This isn’t the Venom I saw in the other dimension._

            “Gravitational…” Fox stared into the nothingness ahead. “Pull?” _There’s nothing here.  Just empty space…_ Adrenaline coursed through his veins and he flipped the controls to manual. Back arched, he pulled back on the steering, all the while dialing back the speed as hastily as he could.

            “Well, are we close enough, Slippy?!” Falco demanded.

            “I… I don’t know!  Why can’t we…?!” Slippy fumbled for the right words.

            “ATTENTION… APPROACHING LARGE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD AT HIGH SPEED… BRACE FOR IMPACT IN… FORTY-FIVE SECONDS…”

            “Pull up!” Peppy shouted, wrangling the controls from the toad. “We’re not at a good angle for our descent, we’ll burn to pieces before we even make it to the planet!”  The hare gave a mighty heave and the mothership began to surge upward.  A crackle and pop from somewhere made Fox grimace and he prayed it was nothing important.

            “The planet!?” Falco exclaimed. “What planet?  You mean…”

            “We’ve entered Venom airspace,” Fox managed as the ship gave a lurch.

            “ATTENTION… APPROACHING LARGE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD AT HIGH SPEED… BRACE FOR IMPACT IN… THIRTY SECONDS…”

            “We’re not gonna make it!” Slippy exclaimed woefully.

            “Escape pods?” Falco suggested, already halfway out the door.

            “No!” Fox shouted over the cacophony, stumbling to the window.  The Great Fox had pulled up, at a decent angle to enter Venom airspace.  The wings were not burning away, but their exposed interiors made him cringe all the same.

           _We’ve been sucked in.  The alarm’s wrong, we’re not approaching the gravitational field, we’re already in it…  It’ll be the planet we hit next…_

           To the hare, Fox yelled, “Peppy, slow it down!”  The veteran did not answer but reached over to decrease the mothership’s speed, pulling back on the lever.  Fox could feel the Great Fox slow its pace, but he wondered if it was enough…

“ATTENTION… APPROACHING LARGE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD AT HIGH SPEED… BRACE FOR IMPACT IN… FIFTEEN SECONDS…”

            The countdown began, in perfect rhythm with Fox’s frantic heartbeat.  Space still stretched ever onward in front of them.  A blink and the vulpine would have missed it.  The reflected image of the Great Fox stared back at him in the cloaking device, the mothership burning from an engine and his own bewildered face in the front window, staring at the mirrored picture with mixed horror and wonder.

            _Almost out of time._

            From the depths of the mayhem, Falco pulled him away from the window, forcing him behind and under a protective countertop. 

            “Come on you hunk of junk!  Jim didn’t pay a fortune for you to flake out on us now!” Peppy yelled as he gave another pull on the steering and the front window became full with red, rocky dirt.  The mothership’s nose tilted upward in the last moment before the impact and with a sudden collision, the Great Fox landed on the planet Venom, sliding for a few moments before coming to a screeching halt. 

            Fox had not realized he had closed his eyes upon the crash.  The force itself had knocked him to the ground and he crouched with a hand still on a nearby chair.  He used it to pull himself up, his green eyes searching the room for any clear signs of damage.  A blazing red sky greeted them, the alien turf barren and devoid of life outside of eerily colored trees moping about the landscape.  The air itself seemed to be mist, glittering and swirling like dangerous, uncanny smog.  Before they set foot outside, they would have to grab their gas masks and oxygen tanks.  It was theorized that the atmosphere could permanently damage the average Lylatian’s lungs in less than an hour of exposure.  Three days of exposure was theorized before death.  Fox did not want to risk it either way.

_Venom.  The supposed first planet of the Lylat System.  It was supposed to be as beautiful as Corneria is… but something happened here and the land became terraformed.  Now it’s a wasteland.  A toxic hellhole._

            “Any breaches?” Peppy asked ROB64 after a moment of silence and sighs of relief.

            “NEGATIVE,” ROB64 beeped.

            “A small blessing,” Peppy sank into a chair, breathing out his tension and worries.  One of his paws readjusted his glasses, which had become crooked at some time during the crash-landing.  “Let’s hope I never have to crash-land this thing ever again.”

            “DAMAGE LISTING FOR GREAT FOX,” ROB64 chimed. “HANGER… PARTIALLY SUBMERGED IN TERRAIN.  LEFT ENGINE AT… 25% CAPACITY. RIGHT WING… DESTROYED.  LEFT WING… DAMAGED.  FRONTAL LASERS… DESTROYED.  LOWER STORAGE UNITS… DAMAGED.  BURN DAMAGE ON HULL… MODERATE.  MAINTENANCE SUGGESTED.”

            “Geez,” Falco sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Guess I can kiss part of my paycheck goodbye.”

            “Can’t miss what you never had, Falco,” Slippy teased but Fox saw a murderous light in the bird’s eyes and decided to intervene by clearing his throat.

            “This isn’t quite what I’d hoped for, but it’ll have to do,” Fox sighed, “We’ll take our Arwings from here.”

            “The Landmaster would be better suited for this, I’d think,” Slippy rubbed his chin.  “But I never got to install the back seats… So uh… It’d be a little cramped, I guess.”

            “Arwings.  I can’t stand that pile of crap,” Falco scoffed.

            “The hanger is partially submerged in the ground,” Peppy pointed out. “We may have little to no space to take off…”

            “Well, we’ve got to try something.  We won’t make it far on foot,” Fox shrugged.  “Don’t forget to grab oxygen tanks and masks in case something happens.”  A gander to ROB64 and the vulpine said, “Stay here with Direct-i.  See if you two can’t patch up the engine.”  The smaller robot had sat in the corner, rebooting after Slippy had installed new software into him (they referred to ROB and Direct-i as males for reasons Fox did not even know).  Thus far, Direct-i had remained silent… it was odd, but Fox did not necessarily mind it.  Having two robots read off damage reports might have given him a bigger headache.

            “AFFIRMATIVE,” ROB64 chimed and set about his work.

            The team made their way down to the hanger and Fox grimaced at the dents in the interior walls of the Great Fox.  Cargo had spilled out of one of their storage units, its crates shattered into pieces about the lower corridors.  Most of it was food, which was both and blessing and a curse, as they would be hard pressed for decent meals on their journey away from Venom.  But on the more positive side of things, at least their bombs had not exploded upon impact.

            _Maybe I should talk to Slippy about storing our explosives away from our food…_ considered Fox for a moment as he slid down the ladder into the hanger.  A glance at the Mark I Arwings and he saw they had sustained a few more scratches from being jostled about the hanger.  Thankfully, latches had kept them in place and they had not been permitted to fly amuck the room, wrecking other Arwings in the process.  The Mark IIs were in no better condition and Falco lamented at how the tip of his right wing had been knocked clean off.  Slippy hastily promised he would fix it on the return flight and Fox clapped Falco on the back before proceeding to his Arwing.

            He powered on his spacefighter, watching the main screen light up with a the Arwing’s systems prep.  It was a long and tedious process, but necessary particularly after their crash landing.  Nothing internally had been damaged from what the systems check informed him.  He sighed with relief, watching the computer go through each and every weapon, priming it for use.  The fighter’s engines whirred melodiously in tune with those that neighbored it.  Fox donned his headset then took a quick glance at the hanger door.  It had partially opened to reveal its halfway submersion—it would be a tight squeeze.

            “I’ll go first,” Fox said after a quick mic test. “Don’t try anything fancy, boys, let’s just take a quick scope of our landscape.”

            “Roger that,” Peppy replied, tone quiet and somber.  Fox could not blame him.

            “Ooookay!” Slippy said with the sort of zeal that made Fox smile.

            “Pft.  Whatever,” Falco said and Fox was certain the bird was rolling his eyes at him.

             His eyes trailed back to the computer screen on his dashboard.  The deflector shields were enabled with a confirmative blue light and the final confirmation that all systems were readied played across the screen.  Fox sent out a ready signal and when there were no protests, he pushed forward on the accelerator the moment he heard the Arwing become unlatched to the Great Fox’s hanger.  Wings tucked back, the fighter sleekly glided forward, out of the hatch and towards the semi-opened door.  The vulpine gave it a little more of a push and the Arwing boosted through the gap, pulling back on the steering to guide it skyward.

            The map display to his right showed one by one as his teammates followed him from the partially submerged Great Fox. A painful look over his shoulder made him realize just how damaged the mothership had become during their unconventional arrival on Venom.  ROB64’s analysis had been accurate—a portion of the Great Fox’s hull was dented, scraped, and battered.  The way Peppy had landed it caused the mothership to have a slight tilt favoring the left side, and one of its severed wings pointed to the fiery sky, a small pillar of smoke still billowing from it.  Costs aside, Fox was beginning to wonder if ROB64 would be able to get the ship to even lift off. 

            _We may have to send out a distress signal to General Pepper… but would they even be in range?_

            He shoved the thought into a corner of his mind, labeling it as something to worry about later. 

            “Peppy,” Fox spoke into the mic, breaking the disquiet that had overtaken the team.  Even Slippy’s cheer could not shake the dreariness of Venom.  “Do you recognize any of this from the last time you were here?”

            “No,” Peppy said. “Everything looks about the same, but no landmarks ring any bells.”

            “Would you be able to remember the coordinates where you guys were last time?”

            “Hm… Probably not.  It’s been awhile.”

            _Well that would have been too convenient,_ Fox mused bitterly.  He piloted the Arwing upwards and put out a scan for any large technological readings.  The Great Fox binged on his radar almost immediately and the computer maintained the scan for a few minutes as they zipped over the Venomian treeline.  Strange structures jutted unnaturally from the planet’s surface—like stone fingers yearning to seize the distant flaring rays of Lylat.  The weeping trees shrouded some areas beneath them, but the scans picked up not even a remote sign of life.

            _This place is desolate._

            A beep on his radar interrupted his grim sightseeing and the vulpine looked at where the signal was coming from.   He steered the spacefighter towards the indicator on the map, pushing forward on the boost.  The others wordlessly followed suit—Peppy to his left, Slippy to his right, and Falco to his rear. 

            “There’s something up ahead,” Fox commented on the radio. “Slippy, can you run an advanced scan?”

            “Already working on it, Fox!” Slippy chimed back and went quiet for a few moments.  His report came with as much enthusiasm as before. “I’m picking up a massive energy reading up ahead.”

            “What kind of energy?” Fox asked.

            “The same as the portals!” Slippy confirmed. “But… holy moly, it’s HUGE!”

            “What’s our distance from it?” Fox asked, zooming out on his map and letting the Arwing flip onto autopilot for a few moments.  

            “We’re a ways off,” Slippy confessed. “So uh… Hope no one has to use the bathroom!”

            Peppy gave a disgruntled sigh at that, and Slippy could be heard laughing from his side of the radio.  Fox shook his head, rubbing his forehead and opted to let the Arwing fly itself.  His eyes wandered about the alien landscape, taking in the nearby green waters of a lake.  A strange, long-bodied creature breached the surface, arching over the waters before disappearing into the murky depths below.  Fox shuddered, pulling his starfighter up in altitude and spent the next few minutes wondering what other devilish creatures lurked on the inhospitable planet.

            Time ticked by slowly, and Fox’s mind aimlessly traversed his varied thoughts.  From the sunglasses that would forever sit in his Arwing’s cockpit, to Yaru DePon, to what they would find—he mused a million things until his forest green eyes misted over and he felt himself sinking away from the grip of reality.  This was the place where his father had died.  It was a strangely numb realization.  He wondered if his father had seen the same blazing sky he was seeing.  He wondered if his father had come this way at all.  Fox had hoped there would have been something beautiful about this place, but there wasn’t… and he felt his throat tighten with dismay and disgust.  His father’s true tomb was unfitting for a man of his prestige.  The burning sunlight, the tainted air and water… even the ground was hideous, like swollen red acne upon the planet’s surface. 

            Every bit of him loathed this place almost as much as he loathed Andross. 

            “We’re approaching our destination!” Slippy alerted them and Fox jolted with surprise.

            Flipping the Arwing into manual, he saw the silhouette appear on the horizon—a massive structure that brazenly flew an Androssian flag at its peak.  A cyborg building of metal and stone, the building looked to be an old set of ruins that had been stabilized by modern machinery.  Its original shape had been fashioned in a rectangular pyramid, but its peak had collapsed inward and now mechanized plates held it together.  Obelisks lay broken into pieces, their carvings too intricate to make out from a distance.  A crane was dormant next to the temple, a spotlight lazily hanging from a cord to illuminate the deserted base.  Apelike statues stood silent sentinel over it, their arms constructed in ways that reminded Fox of church worshippers.  

            “Andross was a sick, sick man,” Falco said with disgust upon their approach.

            “These look awfully old,” Slippy mentioned. “Older than just a little over a decade…”

            “Agreed,” Peppy said, “These temples are everywhere on the planet, Slip.”

            “Are they all like that?” Fox asked, gesturing to the semi-rebuilt structure looming before them.    

            “No… I can’t say they are,” Peppy replied, “The ones we saw were untouched by modern technology.  This… this is different.”

            Upon their approach, Fox switched his Arwing into Walker mode and they neared the crumbling base.  The protective walls had fallen, perhaps out of their own accord or from lack of stability.  He hovered over its rubble, landing in the base’s courtyard.  A gander about the front revealed nothing of particular interest.  There were strange markings upon the elder part of the base—designs that did not resemble modern Lylatian.  The monkey statues looked down at him with discriminatory, yet lifeless rage, their hands tucked into lengthy robed that veiled most of their body.

            “The energy source is coming from inside,” Slippy said.

            Fox looked from the statues to the metallic doors and blasted them open.  As he entered the temple, he sent a single laser down the corridor, watching at how it illuminated.  The walls were decorated with a myriad of things—more eerie ape statues and writings that made his fur prickle with unease.  Regardless, he willed the Walker to lurch forward, and the others followed suit without any commentary.  There was something fell about the temple—something that transcended even Andross’s madness.

            “Bringing up data on the monitor,” Slippy announced and a screen depicting a map appeared on the Arwing’s dashboard.   

            “The power source is above us,” Fox said after a quick glance at the map.

            He flipped a switch and two lights at the nose of his Walker flickered on.  They moved down the hallway at a slowed pace, the images in the corridor looming in the stilled, abandoned facility as though they were frozen in time.  The decaying rock hallways manifested into steel and stainless white walls after some time, and Fox was glad that the eerie statues had not been moved into the newer sectors of the building.  When they made a loop about the first floor and found nothing of interest, Slippy had the idea to try the next floor.

           Fox was in process of aiming his lasers towards the ceiling when his Arwing’s map display chimed.  Surprised, the vulpine looked down at the radar, an unidentified object moving from the westernmost wing and towards them. 

           “There’s something coming,” Falco sounded spooked, and Fox vaguely heard the bird scrambling about within his cockpit. 

           “That can’t be good,” Fox commented. “Evasive maneuvers!” He primed his finger on the twin laser trigger, his emerald eyes searching the darkness for whatever approached them.  Distant sounds of footsteps—colossal and bulky—resounded in the shadows, and as the creature turned the corner, Fox could hear Slippy yelp with surprise. 

           It took massive, hunched over in the corridor, pausing to stare at them with lifeless stone eyes.  Its build was ape-like, yet something was off about it.  It was one of the statues come to life… but bigger, its arms flailing about with wordless belligerence.  Carved into its body were designs not unlike those on the walls—precise markings that were worn by time and the elements.  The statue’s head swiveled and moved on an axis, its many, angry faces staring through them with permanent rage.  A thundering beating of its own chest was quickly followed by it running down the corridor, and the team quickly gathered to one side to let it pass.

          “Peppy, care to enlighten us?” Falco sputtered.

          “Your guess is as good as mine, Falco,” Peppy replied back with evident shock in his voice.

          “Why is it running away?” Slippy asked.

          “Follow it!” Fox insisted and boosted after the strange statue. 

          “This is such a bad idea,” Falco said.

          “I have a feeling it’s not going to leave us alone even if we try to leave it alone,” Fox remarked.

           They rounded the corner with such swiftness that the Walker’s wing nearly scraped the side of the base.  Fox had expected the statue to turn and fight them upon realizing it was being pursued (if robots could even realize such a thing), but it did not.  Instead, it kept moving, and with the lift of one of its gargantuan hands, the metal and stone of the interior tunnels began to peel away, forming dangerous spires that simply fell over in the tunnel.

           “What the heck kind of thing is this?” Falco demanded. “It’s not even fighting us!”

           “It seems… scared?” Slippy suggested. “Can statues BE scared?”

           “Seems like a waste of time to me.  Let’s just blast it and move on, Fox!” Falco suggested.

_A waste of time… Falco might have hit the nail on the head with that…_

           “Arwing mode, let’s go!” Fox said, shifting the Walker back into its normal spacefighter state.  The statue turned then and blocked the corridor with its massive frame, shifting heads and its eyes burning with mechanical red eyes.  Fox slammed the brakes and the others did the same. 

           “Ooookay, it’s a robot.  Definitely a robot,” Falco commented.

           The statue began to beat its chest with a stone hand before charging a laser from its mouth, fangs glistening unnaturally in the dim light.  As the laser propelled forward, Fox dropped his Arwing low, shifting it back into its Walker mode.  Pressing forward on the boost, he dodged to the left to avoid a second beam and the statue lunged forward.  The Walker scraped against the wall as the robotic primate zoomed by.  A few careful aims from Falco sent the stone flying from its exoskeleton. 

          “Yikes!” Slippy exclaimed as the robot reared its ugly mug at Peppy’s Arwing, fangs clasping the very tip of his wing.  The hare boosted and in the middle of his U-turn, shifted his plane into a Walker, sending a spray of laser fire at the Androssian machine.

           Its arms began to pull the ceiling down around them, its stone body falling away with each and every hit.  Its gurgles and screams were lifelike, to the point where Fox cringed as he sent a charged laser into its gaping maw.  The robot emitted a shrill cry before sending a few blasts from its metallic face, destroying and collapsing the walls of the corridor. 

            “He’s bringing the whole place down if we don’t stop him!” Peppy warned as the robotic statue blasted a hole into the wall, exposing the toxic Venomian air.

            “Let’s use a bomb!” Falco began.

            “Let’s not crash this whole place on us!” Fox interjected.  “Kill it… quickly!”

            The vulpine could feel the very foundation of the place tremble as the mechanized statue fell under a merciless spray of lasers.  When the lights of its eyes had faded, Fox released the tense breath that had been held in his lungs. 

            “Well.  That was fun,” Falco remarked. “Where do we go from here?”

            “Up,” Slippy said and Fox took a gander at the shattered ceiling.  The robot had torn a substantial hole into the ceiling, and beyond it, he could see the ceiling of the next floor.  The leader of the Star Fox team gave a shrug and hovered upward, his Walker easily able to clear the distance.

            The second floor was illuminated by blue floor and ceiling lights, giving it an uncanny aura.  Watery tubes lined the hallways—specimen that looked aquatic and fish-like drifted in the tubes, unconscious and likely deceased.  Slippy squeaked with fright at a massive tank, its inhabitants seemingly missing from its murky depths.  Larger fish were in the ones in the last few rooms, with labeled that were written in Lylatian.  Their bodies were larger, fatter than the fish people he had seen before, their eyes half-lidded and glossed over without pupils.  They did not appear to be breathing, but strange tubes were hooked and latched onto their backs, fluid still pumping into them.  Fox grimaced, wondering what he should do about it, but decided that it would be best to leave the strange creatures inside—he did not want to disturb their slumber and risk endangering his teammates. An elevator greeted them at the end of the hallway.  Fox happily blasted the elevator to pieces, using the shaft to hover onto the next floor.

_There’s so much to report back to General Pepper…_

          The third floor was polished far more than the others, its hallways white and glistening as though they had been cleaned that morning.  The radar chimed and Fox’s ears perked as they neared the central room of the third floor, its doors sliding open as if they had been expecting the team’s arrival.  A machine sat in the room’s middle, massive with two spires creating a portal between them.

         “Convenient…” Falco commented aloud.

         “Agreed,” Peppy sounded suspicious and Fox shared the sentiment. 

         “Where does it lead, I wonder?” Slippy asked.

         “There’s only one way to find out,” Fox turned his Walker back into its Arwing mode and directed the fighter towards the wavering portal.

         “Fox, are you sure about this?!” Slippy began, but it was too late.

_We’ve come this far, we can’t turn back now.  No matter what… I need to find out what I saw._


	4. Out of This Dimension!

The portal was an opened mouth waiting to devour him but he fearlessly piloted the Arwing towards it.  Its unnatural whirring adding to the uncanny beeping and buzzing of machinery within the Androssian laboratory, and Fox’s fur stood on end with anxiety.  The portal embraced the Arwing, pulling it into its depths and Fox along with it.  His heart hammered in his ears but his eyes were set forward as the Arwing was pulled into another place entirely.  The scenery of the base faded around him in an instance, opened up into a smoggy, violet abyss.

“Fox?” Slippy’s voice was filled with static, crackling and popping in Fox’s ears. “Fox!!!!”

“It’s okay, Slip,” Fox replied, eyes darting about the strange place he had been pulled into.

Chunks of a planet drifted about—stone and machinery permanently floating in the void.  A husk drifted lazily in the midst of the dimension, one of its sides exploded out with curved, melted metal.  It took a moment for the vulpine to recognize the shattered fake Venom, its core obliterated and chunks of metal soaring nearby, almost taking off one of his wings.  Cloudy nothingness wavered ever so slightly in the distance, illuminated somehow despite their distance from Lylat.  Fox was intrigued by the bizarreness of it all, but kept his head clear.  Dismay crept into his mind the more he circled the debris, realizing the futility of their mission.

_The core… that’s how I got to Andross’s lair… But even that seemed weird.  Like the core itself led to another pocket dimension..._

Three Arwings emerged from the portal to the organic Venom, and Peppy let out a low whistle, clearly impressed by what he was seeing.  Fox scratched behind one of his own ears after doing another pass around a massive chunk of metal.  The violet nothingness moved and swayed like an ocean’s waves, pulsed by a greater force that the vulpine could not see.

 “Geez,” Falco said, “This place is totaled.  Where are we again?”

“Another dimension.  A pocket where Andross was keeping the fake Venom to protect himself from the Cornerians,” Slippy reminded him sharply. “Fox, you said you thought you saw your dad in the planet’s core?”

“Yeah… but it’s…” Fox began but did not bother to finish it.

They understood his meaning.  Fake Venom was destroyed when Andross had perished—in flames and a burst of unnaturally powerful energy.  Within the planet, he assumed there was little to nothing left.  Burnt scrap metal at best, doomed to linger in a place neither here nor there.  Fox supposed in a way, this was eternal damnation.  After their excursion, it was likely no eyes would ever rest on this place ever again.  Fake Venom would be lost forever in its own broken orbit.

“Let’s take a look around.  We flew all of the way out here, after all,” Peppy suggested.

“Slippy, can you do an energy scan?” Fox suggested and the toad hopped onto the task without a second thought.

“There is something out here,” Slippy said after a moment.  Fox could hear his friend typing furiously in his control panel.  The toad adjusted his hat and then gave a sigh. “But it’s odd.  I don’t see anything at all when I look around!”

“What’s the computer tellin’ ya, Slip?” Peppy encouraged.

“It’s saying there’s another portal in here!” Slippy exclaimed.

“You’re crazy.  I don’t see nothin’.  You sure you’re not just detecting the portal we came through?” Falco asked with a testy ‘harrumph’.

“I’m positive.  It’s saying it ought to be…” Slippy said, more frantic typing filling Fox’s headset.  The vulpine physically cringed at the growing volume. “Here!” The exclamation came with a set of coordinates that appeared on Fox’s leftmost screen. 

A map display of their current location appeared, with objects vaguely outlined.  Small dots were centered in the midst of a chunk of rubble, much to Fox’s surprise.  _Is it still… active?  No way…_ Breathlessly, the vulpine leaned forward, eyeing the screen with much interest.  He gave a tap on a button nearby and scrolled in further, identifying the mass as the main husk of the fake Venom.  _The corridor is still there!_

“The middle of that junk?  No way we’re getting in there,” Falco scoffed. “Man, this place is spooky.  You sure it’s not too late to turn back?  W-what if the portal back to real Venom closes?”

 _We’d be trapped in here forever and die.  That’s what would happen._ He did not dare utter those words however, inhaling deeply to soothe his own fears.  His father would have plunged head first into danger, without a second thought to the consequences.  Perhaps that choice would be too foolhardy for his more cautious son.  Somehow, though, Fox found himself tossing his own wellbeing into the wind and boosted forward towards the floating planet.

_Fara, I’m sorry.  If I don’t make it back from this, I’m sure you’ll find happiness again._

“It won’t,” Fox said with fictitious confidence.  He had learned to fake it with the best of them—a lesson from his late sire.  His Arwing swerved around the empty husk, switching to “The portal’s likely contained within the metal.  Slippy, any idea if we can blast the thing open without destroying the portal?”

“Well, this technology is still pretty new to me,” Slippy considered with a thoughtful stroke of his chin. “But if we’re careful, I’m sure the portal will remain intact.”

“Well, let’s give it a try.  What’s the worst that could happen?” Fox remarked.

“WELL—” Slippy began.

“I don’t wanna hear it!” Falco interrupted.

"Ehehehe…” the toad cackled nervously, but he sent out an update that revised the map on their control panels. “A quick scan shows there’s a few weak points on the planet.  If we pick one, we may be able to find a route to its center, where the energy readings are coming from.”

“Let’s take the north one,” Fox suggested.

“This is craaaaazy!” Falco hollered, but chased after Fox in his spacefighter. 

A few well-aimed shots freed a panel of the crumbling shell and Fox steered his Arwing away from the metal as it parted from the main host.  Slippy chimed something about how it seemed to be working, but the vulpine let the words pass through his ears without careful absorption.  Peppy sent a spray of his own lasers at the adjacent part and more of the planet deteriorated into pieces.  The planet seemed to shudder for a moment, though with a blink of his emerald eyes, Fox pondered if it was a only figment of his imagination. 

“Wow!  The power levels are really rising now.  Must be ‘cause of the interference those plates were causing!” Slippy remarked.

More of the planet fell away under heavier laserfire—mixed between Falco and Fox’s Arwings.  A glimmer of dark blue caught the vulpine’s eye and he backtracked with a quick U-turn just as the last section fell away.  The portal was exposed, its hue a glorious star-speckled midnight with white rimming its wavering mouth.  Beyond it, he could see glimpses of pink veins along an ethereal wall—etching mindlessly through the abyssal hallway into Andross’s fallen lair. 

“That’s it!” Fox said with a gasp, his fur standing on end. 

“Well… what do we do now?” Falco asked.

“We go in,” the words came from Fox’s mouth without logic, without thought.  If Falco made a sharp reply, then he did not hear it, his gaze focused wholly on the portal alone.  His hand moved to the booster but it was Slippy that cut him off.

“H-hang on!”

Something was off about the toad’s voice.  The cheer was replaced with open worry and Fox tossed his old friend a look across their communication screen.  Slippy was typing furiously, muttering something under his breath that sounded quite negative.  Creamy brows furrowing, Fox realized the breath in his lungs was being held captive in his throat… and slowly released it with the sagging of his shoulders.  One of the Arwing’s screens reflected his own haggard expression, restlessness heaving in his chest and a twitch upon his fingers.  His brakes ran out and Fox drifted around the waving portal.  The second shudder that rocked the metallic planet was no trick of the light, nor a symptom of his exhaustion.  Apprehensively, Fox extended his own radar a tad further.  Brilliant waves marked the portal—rising and falling with such frequency that the scanner began to buzz with its own mechanic confusion. 

“What is it, Slip?” Peppy’s voice broke the silence.

“There’s something…” Slippy began but trailed off.  Fox’s eyes flitted from the toad to the planet, now quaking like an egg ready to hatch.

“I don’t like this…” Falco said, pulling his Arwing back.  His ship’s cannons exposed themselves and Fox flipped his own plane into combat mode, deploying his weapons. 

A grey, hulking mass dipped through the glassy image of the corridor.  At first, Fox could only see a tail, bent unnaturally at its center and covered in tiny lumps that reminded him of skin.  He did not dare approach the drifting object but moved to keep his Arwing at a distance.  Its form was elongated, uncannily like that of the sea creatures of Aquas.   The creature’s head was the thickest point of its body, gargantuan and ravaged.  Its flesh had been mauled, its wounds old and its bone visible beyond its abundant blubber.  Strange machines had been attached to its sides at one point, and Fox questioned how much of the creature had been organic and how much had been metal.

“Is that… A whale?” Slippy said, aghast.

“How did it get here?” Falco questioned.

The corpse floated into the mix of scrap metal and debris, one of its fins coming off as it collided into a steel remnant.  Fox turned his eyes away from the whale, stomach twisting into a uncomfortable knot.  Slippy’s gasp alerted him to the second strange object to come through the portal—a gnarled, robotic hand that turned Fox’s blood cold with fear.  A few joints were missing, but it was unmistakable what the hand had belonged to.  Peppy, too, seemed to be holding his own breath, red-tinted eyes digging rivets into the portal in search for answers.  Fox loosened his grip for a mere moment as the broken appendage soared past, its fingers contorted in a deathlike grip over the air.

“Fox… Was that…?” Peppy began, but his voice died off.

“Yeah,” Fox answered, gaze ever fixated upon the portal.  A maniacal eye fell through next, its lens crimson but deactivated.  Next came miscellaneous chunks like puzzle pieces, drifting free from the prison of another dimension.  The vulpine’s digestive tract had gone from a knot to a full twist and he felt a pulse of nausea rack his torso.  A second eye, still connected to the metallic forehead, passed through just after the other hand, its fingers blown off.

There was a condemning silence after, and without thinking, Fox put one of his hands to his mouth.  _If that’s what happened to Andross… then there’s no way an Arwing could have survived that…_  Tears stinging his eyes, the pilot let his hand muffle a choked sob and he temporarily muted his intercom.  Emotions poured over him like a downfall of rain and he basked in it for a moment, letting himself lose control as the realization crept in.

_I was afraid.  Dad was never there.  I was just seeing things.  I… I navigated the corridor by myself.  I defeated Andross by myself.  I dragged everyone out of here for nothing.  There’s nothing left.  Just scrap metal and memories…_

“Let’s go, boys,” Peppy took command of the situation after some time. “I’ll buy us pizza when we get back to Corneria.”

“Sounds good, old man.  Let’s ditch this place,” Falco chimed in, but even his typical nonchalance was overwritten with a tone of somberness.

Fox turned his plane away, making to follow the others back towards the portal to the real Venom.  “Y-yeah…” He said after flipping his mic back on.  It was all he could manage.

The futility of their mission hit him in hard swings each and every passing second of their departure.  What was he going to say to Pepper?  That they had found nothing?  What had the whole point been?  Part of him wanted to plunge back into the portal anyways—to flip off fate and the odds and to follow his desperate hopes.  His arms did not budge, however, and felt heavy as lead.  _It was an idiot’s dream._   He chided himself for being the sentimental fool that he was.

Slippy’s Arwing not moving caught his eye.  Fox looked from the radar to the window, giving his starfighter a sharp turn.  The toad’s Arwing idly sat by, before the portal in the heart of the manufactured planet, a speck in the light of its maw.  Before Fox could ask, his friend spoke, “I’m picking up an energy reading… it’s off the charts.”  Something about the way Slippy was talking made Fox wonder… only to toss the thought aside.  There was no hope left for his father’s survival.  If even Andross’s own mechanized form could not survive the lair’s explosion, then how could a simple Arwing…?

What tore from the depths of the portal, Fox could not explain, but its advent sent a pulse that jarred even the Arwing’s computer.  Stabilizing his plane as best as he could, he cried out into his mic, “Slippy, look out!”  The translucent appendage curled its misty pink tendrils about the cusp of the portal itself, pulling as if to free its body from its transdimensional hell.  It took Fox a moment to realize that it was a ghostly hand, tipped with unnatural fingers that bent outwards then inwards, as though they were a spider’s legs.  Slippy boosted as soon as the second hand emerged to swat him.  His scream was echoed by a shout of alarm from Falco.

“W-what is that thing!?”

“Be on your guard!” Peppy cautioned, making a U-turn from the portal.  Falco followed suit and both deployed their weapons without hesitation.

A figure of luminous violet and fuchsia spilled forth clumsily, its hands clawing away the rest of the mechanized Venom.  Its planetary egg fell to pieces in its phantom hands, its body breaking free.  Fox had never seen anything like the beast before—a glistening, mirage-like creature with elongated arms attached to nothing but a half-torso.  Its head was a blank slate, eyes engraved into its angular face and tentacle-like strands of hair decorating its scalp.  When its mouth opened, it bore fangs but not lungs to scream.  Instead, there was only silence.

“I don’t know what this thing is…” Fox began. “But we’re not letting it out of here.”

“Roger that,” Falco said darkly.

“I haven’t seen anything like this, Fox… Not in any text book, not in any class…” Slippy replied frantically. “Where are we going to… How do we…?”

“Shoot it,” Fox’s voice wavered with fear for a moment but he steeled it. “Do something.  We can’t let it escape.”

The being drifted in the abyss of the dimension, its hands flexing and moving as though it were a child discovering its own movements.  Its gaping, pupilless eyes blinked once, twice, then found their way to the Arwings.  Fox hit the boost on his fighter and he lurched forward, the other three tailing him.  The specter’s hands opened and orbs appeared hovering just above its palms. 

“I don’t like the look of that,” Falco commented moments before the orbs were released in spiraling waves.

Fox rolled his Arwing into the center of the beams, watching as the dangerous lights danced around them.  The gap between the attacks was narrow but he squeezed through without scraping his vehicle, the others formed in a line behind him.

“Slip, let us know when your scans are complete.  Peppy, see if you can locate a weakness on this thing,” Fox barked over the communication line.

“W-what do you want me to do?” Falco sputtered.

“Do what you do best,” Fox answered and the bird parted his Arwing from the line of blue and white starfighters.  With a spin and a high arc, the ace fired down at the ghostly creature, his lasers passing through its form.  Peppy dipped his plane to the right, giving a wider berth of the phantom.  Slippy dodged to the left, firing a few shots towards its face.  It made a soundless howling face but no noise came.  Fox pushed his Arwing into a faster boost, letting his cerulean lasers strike without discrimination over the being’s incomplete form. 

“I don’t think that did anything,” Falco said after each pilot had made a second pass around the ghost.

One of its hands reached to grab Peppy’s ship but the veteran nimbly dodged, one of its fingers slicing the air near his wing.  The hare let out a sigh of relief and circled around the backside of the hovering specter.  More spiraling beams from its hands tore their way through space and Fox winced as one of them took off the tip of his plane’s wing.  At its gaping mouth, Fox sent a bomb into it and the creature reeled with power, hands clawing at the air over its head in agony.

“That seems to have done something,” Peppy remarked. “How many bombs do we have between the four of us?”

“Hopefully enough to wreck this thing,” Falco commented as he came down over the phantom’s face, spraying its misty eyes with lasers.  It swatted at the Arwing, striking it square from the left side.  Falco yelped with alarm as his plane went spinning away.

“Falco!” Fox yelled.

“He can hit us but we can’t hit him?  Lame!” Falco said angrily.

“Aim for its mouth!  Don’t waste your time on the other stuff,” Peppy cautioned.  The team flew back, regrouping as the phantom unleashed a few smaller beams at their retreating backs.  A sudden strong force pulled Fox’s Arwing back but he surged forward with a boost, a fearful look tossed over his shoulder. 

“What the—” Falco sputtered, his fighter getting pulled back a few yards behind Peppy’s.  The creature’s maw was opened, its tongue dancing with delighted anticipation.  Slippy made a disgusted face but the entire thing rang a bell of familiarity in Fox’s mind.  As the force drew them closer to the eager specter, Fox pressed his Arwing into a U-turn, facing the creature maw.  Another bomb was released and the impact sent the team’s fighters forward.

“How did you know to do that?” Slippy asked with amazement.

“Instinct, I guess,” Fox replied and the team turned back to face the phantom.

The misted creature’s face seemed to be cracked, veins of violet etching over its plain face.  Its arms were spread wide, its skeletal chest bent upward.  Swirling tendrils of light gathered at its chest, clustering together like a million stars.  The attack came in a flurry of white lights—flaring as bright as Lylat itself with comet tails.  Slippy’s Arwing suffered a few heavy hits and he retreated back, one of his wings missing entirely.  Peppy’s hull had become singed by the array of light but Falco and Fox’s were largely unmarred.

“Are you okay, Slip?” Fox asked.

“I’ll be fine!  But my Arwing is really damaged…” Slippy said with worry. “I don’t know how much more it can take…”

“We need to figure out a way to kill it and fast,” Fox said.

“Hey… do you see that?” Falco commented.  “It’s gotten bigger…”

Falco was correct; the creature’s torso had thickened, a vaguely blue, transparent veil covering its skeleton.  It was constructed to the hip now, just shy of having legs.  Each hand had claws, demonic and curved inward.  Its face was familiar to him, covered in tiny markings that looked like blood vessels and pulsed with uncanny light.  The being’s head was large in size, a strange forming nebula in its skull.  Wonder and fear took over the vulpine’s mind for a moment… The beast screeched with its newfound lungs—a cry that shook the fabrics of the other dimension and sent a chill into Fox’s bloodstream.

“Trap it,” Fox said quietly. 

“What?” Falco asked him.

“We’re going to trap it in here,” Fox replied, “We let it out of the portal, it’s our job to make sure it doesn’t make it into the Lylat System.”

“What about shooting bombs into its mouth?” Slippy asked.

“It’s getting stronger faster than we can do that,” Fox shook his head. “Slippy, head through the portal.  Falco, Peppy—you too.  In one minute, you’re going to destroy the teleportation device.”

“And what are you going to be doing?” Peppy asked.

“I’m gonna distract it.  Now go!” Fox yelled.

“Fox, you can’t—” Slippy began.

“Go!” the vulpine insisted and the three steered their Arwings away.  The creature drifted forward with curiosity written on its corpselike face, gnashing its ghastly teeth as though it were chewing something.  As it made to chase the three Arwing pilots, Fox sent a few shots into its newly formed, misty skin. 

“Come on, ugly!” Fox snarled at the phantom. “Let’s do this!”  He directed his Arwing away and the ghost followed him.

“We’ll try to send you a warning when we’re close to being done out here,” Peppy informed him. “Communication may be hard since we’ll be in the other dimension, but we’ll try.”

“Thanks, Peppy,” Fox said.  Static filled his ears, Falco’s voice cutting in and out.

“Hang on there!  And don’t be stupid.”

A smile twitched onto Fox’s lips as he boosted around the empty hull of Venom.  The creature’s sneers filled the abyssal dimension and a rumbling could be heard nearby.  A hand appeared on the other side of the bend and Fox ducked low to avoid being snatched by the phantom.  The creature loomed over him and he pressed his Arwing to outfly it, dodging to the left and right to avoid the desperate, grasping hands.  With a thrust to the accelerator, he ascended rapidly, pointing the nose upward to do a massive loop around the skeletal specter.

_Is my minute up yet?  It feels like time ticks by so slowly when you’re fighting…_

He fired a few shots at the beast’s face and it recoiled with a cry.  One of its hands slapped the Arwing and Fox saw his world spin for a moment before the plane righted itself.  By the time he had gotten a grip of his senses, the phantom was bearing down onto him with a beam in either hand.  His wings were disintegrated somewhere in the evasive maneuver that followed and Fox looked at his systems status.

“WARNING, WARNING… BOTH WINGS… LOST.  ALPHA LASERS… LOST… RESORTING TO BACK UP GAMMA LASER…” The robotic voice of the spacecraft announced and he gritted his teeth with frustration.

The creature was collecting light once more, its tendril-like hair whipping about in the forceful winds it was conjuring.  Its screams filled the pilot’s ears, deafening him as the comet-like beams were unleashed.  He rolled to dodge them, firing at one or two to clear his flight path.  By the time he took another look at the phantom, its skin had become cloudier, almost solid.  The skeleton within was a visible, vibrant red—poisoning the ever-purple and blue that made up its unnatural body.  Fledgling legs had begun to form but they were twisted and mutated—unusable, but the creature had no issues maneuvering through space.

_I know these movements.  I know this face.  I know everything about this fight.  Focus… Focus… I just need to buy time._

Its hands extended forward, grabbing towards the Arwing.  Unseen tendrils grabbed at the broken Arwing, pulling it in every which way the creature saw fit.  The noise that came from its ghastly face reminded him all too much of gleeful, maniacal laughter, and the vulpine tried his best to steer out of its grasp.  The laughter gave into stranger coughing and choking and Fox broke free of the unseen grip.   Chunks of scrap metal came from the beast’s mouth, its gnarled hands grabbing at its throat.  Fox weaved between them, unleashing one of his bombs at the recuperating phantom.  Its shrill cry confirmed that it could at least feel agony.

A pulse of blue fringed around fuchsia knocked the Arwing back and Fox stabled it with his deft hands.  The creature chased, arms extended and hands ready to smash the fighter between them.  Fox ducked underneath, smoke billowing from his plane’s missing wings. He steered his Arwing around a chunk of metal leftover from the fake Venom.  The creature’s next blast obliterated the metal, shielding the Arwing from the blow. 

“Fox, you there?  We’re about to close off the portal.  Get out of there!” Peppy’s voice came through the fight.

“Roger that,” Fox replied.  He sent his ship away from the portal, pressing it into a boost.  The creature gave chase, giving off waves of energy that rocked the Arwing, scraping off its paint and revealing the glistening silver underneath.  One of his fingers switched off the mic attached to his helmet.  Drawing in a deep breath, the pilot flipped the Arwing around, the hulking phantom upside-down in his sights.

“Have fun sitting in here forever.  I don’t envy you at all.”

It gaped at him, energy forming at its mouth in an attempt to ready an attack.  Fox released the final bomb in his compartment, watching as it vanished into the beast’s body.  He put his Arwing into a sharp incline as the explosion went off.  Shrieks tormented his ears and yet he pressed his ship towards the opening in the fabric of reality.  He did not expect the hand to seize his Starfighter, denting the hull with a vicelike grip.  A scream tore through him and he could feel the ship being pulled back, away from the portal that meant freedom, the portal that meant Fara, the portal that meant life.

_“N O. . .”_

The voice resonated in his soul, echoing down the halls of his mind like a dark, familiar melody.  Teeth bared and knuckles gripping tightly on the control stick, Fox felt fear run his limbs cold and numb.  There was another crunch and an alarm resounded in the cockpit.  He tried to boost but the Arwing merely gave a spasm before the engine sputtered out a handful of smoke.

_“Y O U   W I L L   S T A Y!”_

Fox heard the systems error alert in his Arwing before the fingers parted.  A glistening image came into view—the faint, misty outline of an Arwing.  He blinked but it lingered, turning towards where his broken ship was drifting away from the clutches of the specter.  The phantom ship passed him by, weapons deployed and alpha lasers firing mercilessly at the recoiling beast, followed by a bomb.  Fox almost forgot himself in the marvel of the ghost that approached him, the portal shining through its hull.  Vaguely, through the window of the cockpit, Fox could see the pilot giving him a thumbs up sign and a toothy grin behind a set of thick-rimmed sunglasses.

If there were words, then he could not find them.  The image dissipated into sparkling nothingness before him—starlight against the violet abyss.  He wanted to stay, to see if the phantom would return, but the cries of the spectral monster reached his ears. His heart swelled with things he could not put words to.  It rushed through his bloodstream, filling his grieving mind and silencing him for a moment.  The starlight danced around him, and somewhere in that time, the Arwing’s internal systems booted back online.  Fox’s hand danced above the accelerator, giving one last look to the creature, its face shattered to reveal an orange and crimson-ridden skeleton.

_It’s now or never._

Fox McCloud pushed the Arwing into a boost towards the gateway to freedom.  Disbelief was roared behind him, the specter’s wordless cries disappearing as soon as the Arwing’s hull made it through   The moment his engines had passed from the alternate dimension and into the other, the teleportation device erupted with fire.  The portal closed forever and Fox’s Arwing screeched to a halt in the floor of Gestalt Andross’s laboratory.

 

* * *

 

 

General Pepper greeted them himself upon their arrival at the Cornerian Military Headquarters.  An entourage of guards showed them all up the large elevator, and into the General’s office for a private debriefing.  Corneria seemed so much brighter and vivid in color since their return—Fox had made sure to take in every breath of fresh air with newfound appreciation.  Despite the news of Yaru DePon’s arrest, the people of Corneria City had nothing but positivity in their hearts and minds—something that put a smile on Fox’s face despite how trying these last few days had been.

The office had not changed at all since their last visit, but Fox felt like a whole new person entirely.  His hands thumbed the fur on his head as they took their seats on the other side of Pepper’s desk.  The General each let them have a lollipop from the jar he kept on his desk, and Falco went to work crunching his immediately. 

“Your report from Venom was not very descriptive, I must say,” Pepper said, sorting files on his desk. “You said that you found a still-active teleportation device in Andross’s lab?”

“Affirmative.  We found… a lot of bizarre things there.  It seems like Andross was a busy guy while he was exiled,” Fox said with a nod.

“There were experiments like nothing I’d ever seen before.  All of them… really creepy,” Slippy made a face. “If I were you, I’d send a squadron to investigate it, General Pepper.  Something tells me that a lot of those things in that lab could be a threat to the Lylat System!”

“We will look into it.  If it’s recommended by the Star Fox team… well, who am I to say no?” Pepper chuckled, but there was a hint of nervousness in his voice. “Besides, DePon could have had a hand in it, what with his affiliation with Andross.”  He paused, sweeping his brown eyes across the four before resting them on Fox. “Your report cuts off quite a bit when you talk about your fight with this… energy-creature.  How is it that you managed to best it?”

“It’s currently locked in another dimension that Andross created,” Fox explained. “Hopefully indefinitely.  But there’s a lot about that creature I don’t understand.  I don’t know how it was able to use abilities like that… I don’t even know how it was able to live in those conditions, sir.  Something is definitely suspicious about it.”

Peppy shifted his weight, drumming his fingers in his lap. “I’ve sent word to Randorn to look into the matter.  He says he’ll be making an expedition to Venom soon.  I think that this creature could be related to that ah… mumbo-jumbo he always talked about.”

“I’ll admit, the idea of magic and planetary energies is beyond me,” General Pepper confessed. “But I would be happy to swap notes with Randorn once my soldiers have their intel.  Lylat forbid that the energy creature you described ever sets foot outside of its prison.”  He shook his head.  The hound gave a pause, scratching his chin. “What of… the Arwing, Fox?  Did you see anything while you were there?”

His heart pulsed in his ears, mind unable to stop conjuring the image he had seen during his battle with the phantom.  Fox closed his eyes, exhaling softly.  The ship had belonged to none other than James… it was true.  And there was no way Fox could describe it without sounding insane.  What he had seen disturbed him, yet a part of his heart had grown peaceful over the days of contemplation on their trip back to Corneria.

_Somehow… I think he knew what he was doing when he stayed on Venom.  I think he knew that thing was going to come.  I think he knew everything we were going to see… and that we would need someone there.  Someone to fight that thing.  He’s gone, now, I know he is.  He’s somewhere better than this place.  Somewhere beyond the sky, beyond space itself, where Mom is.  I hope his spirit can find some peace there._

“I didn’t see anything,” Fox answered, eyes meeting the General’s.  It would take years for his heart to accept that his father was dead… but he had to start trying.  “But somehow, I know he’s watching over all of us.”

“Fox…” Peppy whispered.

“I’ll be okay,” Fox reassured them, a half-smile on his face. “I’ve got the best guardian angel on my side.”


End file.
